getting close to a sentence. so because of that and we're also about 10 seconds away from the top of the hour, i will leave you now and turn things over to andrea mitchell. andrea mitchell reports starts now. >> thank you, craig melvin. the suspense is mounting. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. moments away from the sentence for paul manafort. it may be tacked on for the 48 month sentence from a very judge. judge amy berman jackson opened the proceeding saying what she is doing cannot be a revision of a sentence kbord by another court. after hearing arguments from both sides, she said this defendant is not public enemy number one but he's not a victim either nor is it an indictment of special counsel. mr. manafort had a chance to plea for a lighter sentence but he squandered it. the no collusion mantra is a non sequitur. for hearing the sentence paul manafort apologized for the first time telling the judge, i am sorry for what i have done

and all the activities that have gotten us here today. then adding, i stand here today to assure the court that i am a different person than the person who stood before you in october of 2017. today's proceedings stems from manafort's guilty plea in september to conspiracy charges for failing to register as a foreign lobbyist for pro-russian ukrainian powers. brokers and witness tampering. before the sentence prosecutors and defense lawyers made starkly different arguments. prosecutors ps with a series of crimes, millions of dollars over years. defense arguing manafort being targeted for political reasons. joining me nbc intelligence and national security reporter outside the courthouse, justice and security analyst matt miller, atlantic staff writer and former u.s. attorney harry litman. welcome all. ken, as we await the sentencing, she's working her way through the different charges. she's given very stiff guidance

about her attitude towards this defendant. >> yes, andrea. in the last five or ten minutes, judge amy berman jackson has really laid the groundwork for quite a harsh sentence. while at one point she said she believed paul manafort was sincere when he apologized and took responsibility for actions in contrast -- >> ken, let me just read you a part of what she has said so far. she said, i do not need to make my sentence concurrent to the entire 47 months, but i bound to do it for 30 months. any sentence i impose to count one must be concurrent to 30 months because that is the extent of the overlap, where obviously the conduct is the same as the conduct here. she then says five years on that count would be greater than necessary to serve the purpose of the criminal sentence. let me just go here to harry litman. your read so far on what she's saying on count one.

>> she's certainly clearing i wouldn't say a harsh sentence but a fair straight sentence of as a prosecutor it was so gratifying to hear her say facts matter in this court. i see her as an excellent judge who is doing it by the book. in fact, it is true that he lied. it is true collusion has nothing to do with this. she is sort of preparing the groundwork i agree for a tough sentence but one that is not just the conduct by the guidelines. >> matt miller, she's already said, made the point to his argument that he does not want to be separated from his wife that the purpose of incarceration does mean that families have to deal with that. she's rejected a lot of the personal pleas he made and made it very clear this apology is too little too late. >> if he didn't want to be separated from his wife, he shouldn't have committed the crimes. that's true for everyone in prison, they are separated from their families. it's been remarkable to of what her go through the factors she

is forced to consider, has to consider, to come up with a fair sentence but systematically taking apart arguments manafort and his counsel made, saying that a significant portion of his life was spent gaming the system. saying that while he did technically take responsibility in the fact he did plead guilty, after the time he pled guilty, he continued to lie to prosecutors and the grand jury. especially she made a really important point that this argument his attorneys keep making in court filings and on the courthouse steps, that there is no collusion, that's not a question, number one, presented at this trial. number two, that seems intended for another audience. a clear reference to the president of the united states. not a point she had to make. a striking thing to say. >> the president picked it up immediately on the south lawn a day or so later. it was clearly for what many described on capitol hill, many democratic critics of the president as a plea for a pardon from the defense attorney. >> she's saying that explicitly.

we know paul manafort is a guy who she said this morning likes to game the system. the best way he could game the system in this instance where he's stuck staring at the abyss. he's got these years of jail time looking forward to. the only out for him right now is to get a pardon. it does seem like his strategy is geared towards that. >> and harry litman, the president has not ruled out a pardon. according to sarah sanders and the questions that have been asked in recent days by our colleagues at the white house, there's no ruling out of a pardon in this case. >> far from it. we now have information vis-a-vis michael cohen, it's something he's discussed, thought about, maybe even dangled. that's right. i don't think as a political manner manafort can expect anything in the next year, year and a half. but the question is whether an outgoing president trump or even a re-elected purchase might pull

the trigger oppose a pardon. that's obviously manafort's hope. >> pete joinins us as well. >> after a long tongue lashing, the sentence turns out to be pretty light given he could have gotten 10 years in prison on the two counts he faced. judge amy berman jackson has sentenced him to an additional 3 1/2 years. the actual sentence is longer than that, but some of it overlaps with what he was already sentenced in virginia last year, which is just shy of four years. so you add the 3 1/2 he gets today to the roughly 4 years he got last month, that's a total of 7 1/2 years. he gets credit for the roughly 9 months that he has served in prison. so he'll get out of prison when he's roughly 75 or 76 years old depending on whether he gets time off for good behavior.

now, he did address the court today. he said, please let me and my wife be together. we need each other. i am sorry for my conduct. this is a bit of a contrast last week when he did not express any remorse. he said i'm a different person than i was in october of 2017 when he was arrested. but this apparently did not impress judge amy berman jackson. she said it's hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud that he pleaded guilty to committing, hiding his income from the irs, hiding it from his obligation to report foreign income to the federal government. judge jackson said she was surprised that manafort did not write his own letter to her, which is a common thing for defendants to do before their sentencing. she said his attitude during this trial all along has been look what they have done to me. she said he squandered his chance to plea for a lighter sentence. now, his lawyers said that he

would not have been subject to all of this high-profile trial if it was not for the fact that he served for a short time as the campaign chairman for donald trump and that all that attention has taken a heavy toll on him. but the judge said none of that matters. the question of whether the independent counsel was right to bring these charges or not don't count. he's pleaded guilty, he's been convicted, he has to be sentenced for his crimes. the judge did start out this roughly 2 1/2 hour hearing by saying her sentence today is not intended to be a revision of a sentence that was imposed last week by judge ellis. but bottom line here, paul manafort, who turns 70 years old on april 1st is now facing a sentence of roughly 7 1/2 years in federal prison, minus the 9 months. he'll get credit for the time he's already served. back to you.

>> paul manafort you just heard from our colleagues. harry litman, your take on this sentence. he's now basically 70 years old, 7 1/2 years in federal prison, he gets credit for 9 months already served. >> he's looking at being out, perhaps, 77, a little younger, that's if, of course, none of the states that are waiting here, rhode island, new york, illinois impose additional time. >> they would have to try him, charge him and try him. >> i think that's a real possibility. i wouldn't say it's light, she gave 7 1/2 years, 2 1/2 of them were concurrent as they had to be with the guidelines. so that amounts to the extra 43 months. but overall for a 10 year maximum, 7 year sentence, that's down the middle. so far that's what's she's been, down the middle, by the book judge. that's gratifying for the

system. >> i believe ken delaney is still outside the courtroom. ken, you've been following this from the beginning. virginia as well as d.c. your takeaway after her very tough comments as well addressing the larger political debate that has taken place in the country because of the president's comments and the comments from paul manafort's attorney in the alexandria case. >> absolutely right. this was a much different courtroom atmosphere than last week in virginia and judge amy berman jackson appeared to take on directly some of the things that paul manafort's defense tried to raise, particularly the idea there was no collusion. she said that coarseed through their defense. she did take in the apology from today, not last week. then she went on to say she didn't really believe it in the sense she was wondering why she

didn't get a letter from him expressing remorse. she was wondering why today he was saying he was sorry. essentially implying he was sorry he got caught. after that tongue lashing, excoriating manafort for five or ten minutes, she ended up giving him a sentence that was less than many thoughts, not the guideline. 7 1/2 years total for a set of white collar crimes is more than average. it's a difficult range of time. given the complex nature of manafort's crime spree over 10 years and the fraud on the american public, many people are going to greet this as a lighter than expected sentence, andrea. >> pete williams outside the court. is it the end of drama with paul manafort. he pleaded guilty in this case, so it's unlikely he would have an appeal. pete, are you there?

okay. matt miller and frank, let's pick it up there. we'll reconnect with pete williams. at the same time as this was a tough statement, this is sort of halfway between the guidelines, mid-range sentence. >> the guidelines were very serious for the offenses to which he pled guilty. the statutory maximum for which she could sentence him was 10 years. it's not an unreasonable sentence. i think a lot of people will look at this and look at the totality and think 7 1/2 years isn't a long enough sentence. as she made clear in her opening remarks today, it's not her job, in fact, she's not allowed to correct for deficiencies of another judge. she didn't call it deficiencies of another judge. if people have a complaint about totality of the sentence he's serving. it's what you would expect.

some is concurrent because that is what the rules require her to do. >> i think it's very interesting, frank, she said he's not public enemy number one but neither is he a victim. >> primarily the difference between last week and this week is judge ellis used that phrase in an otherwise blameless life with paul manafort. she said, okay, you're not public enemy number one. that was kind of almost a polite prologue to this tongue lashing where she accused him of subverting the political process, accused him of lying incessantly. so in her description of manafort extended beyond just the charges that were on the table to describe this history that he had as a lobbyist where he was pioneering new ways for subverting the system on behalf of his clients, and she described his work in ukraine in a quite tough way. >> the fact is, she also said

pete williams, now joining us, that collusion was not an issue here. that is a non sequitur. he was not charged with that. we know russia and that relationship, those allegations are the heart of the mueller case but that was not what was on trial here. she's pushing back against what his defense attorneys said in virginia after the sentencing last week and what the president of the united states said, more importantly. >> and what the defense said in its sentencing memo in this case here in the district, andrea, they have said were it not for the fact he was the campaign chairman for donald trump for a while, this never would have been such a high-profile trial. kevin downing, his defense lawyer in the pretrial memo said there's no collusion here. this has nothing to do with russia, even though this was brought by the special counsel. in fact, the first case the special counsel brought to court. the judge said, it doesn't

matter. i'm sentencing paul manafort for hiding all that money from the internal revenue service, for failing to disclose it to the federal government he was lobbying for a foreign government here on american soil. she said that tends to disrupt the american political system. his whole life, she said, has been nothing but lies and trying to gain the system. it did seem like a windup to perhaps a more severe sentence than he ended up getting today. just to be a little more sentence about how the sentence works, andrea. she sentenced him to 60 months on count one. count one was a catchall conspiracy charge sort of basically for all of the conduct involving hiding mope from the government. basically everything he was convicted on in virginia except for the bank fraud limited to the virginia trial. but she said half of that will be served concurrently, the same time as the virginia sentence. so that 60 total, of which half is concurrent, that's a net of

30 additional months. then on count two, which was unique to this trial, it didn't overlap at all with virginia because it went to his witness tampering, the government said he basically was trying to get some people not to fess up to their lobbying in the u.s. on behalf of ukraine at his direction, he gets 13 additional months. so it's a total of 43 additional months added to the 47 he already had in virginia, that comes out to about 7 1/2 years. he gets credit for the 9 months he's already served in jail. of course under the federal system, if defendants behave well, they can get up to 47 days a year, in essence, time off for good behavior. there's no parole in federal prison. the sentence will come out to be somewhere 6 1/2 total sentence if he gets the time off for good behavior. that's why i say he turns 70 april 1st. he could be out of prison by the time he's 76.

>> now, pete williams showing us he's good at the math as well as everything else. pete, thank you very much. contributor glen kirchner was in the courtroom to watch all of this and is now with ken delaney outside. can you describe paul manafort? we've seen him in various ways, we've seen the artwork by our great artist, of him in a wheelchair. i think he's suffering from gout, among other things. that's one of the arguments the defense made. he's been in recent instances in court in prison garb, no longer has the hair coloring he long want to be seen before he was incarcerated. how did he look today? >> he didn't look bad. he looked perhaps more robust than we have seen him in the past in these court proceedings. andrea, one of the nice things about what judge jackson just did, she took down every unsupportable claim that manafort and his attorney have

been making. for example, she said, sir, you claim you're suffering from gout, and i'm not disputing that, but neither you nor your attorneys have presented me inform any information about that. no medical records. not so much as a letter from a doctor asking me to take any action. she also took down the mantra he's been subjected to solitary confinement. essentially when he was in the northern neck regional facility, a jail in virginia, he had like a one-person suite with a spare room to do his work in, with computer access and a television and a phone. then she also accused both he and his lawyers of being disingenuous for a number of claims, most importantly the no collusion claim. your no collusion mantra is, in her words, not factual because the investigation, the special counsel's investigation is not complete. she really took both the defendant himself and the

attorneys to task for certain representations that they had been making. >> thanks so glen kirchner, pete williams and ken delaney, the connecticut democratics plummen thole, former attorney general of connect and he joins me now. your reaction to what judge jackson did in court, what he said and the sentence he will serve with time off for good behavior. six years and nine months in federal prison if you combine the two sentences. >> looking at the totality of what he did and the totality of the sentences, both last week and now, paul manafort caught a break. this overall sentence is exceedingly lenient, probably excessively so in my view because of his utter contempt for the rule of law, his obstruction of justice, witness

tampering, lying to prosecutors, playing them. the judge, indeed, gave him a tongue lashing. she was very critical of him and his lawyers. she said, very appropriately, court is a place where facts still matter. so she brought facts to bear. but the sentence itself overall, i think, will be rightly criticized for its leniency. there's no way she could compensate for judge ellis's miscarriage of justice, but the overall sentence will be rightly criticized. >> and an explanation, though, she said going into this today, some three hours ago, she said she could not be today trying to revise what another judge had done. so the fault, if there is a fault with the overall sentence, really goes back to judge ellis in virginia. >> there's a lot of truth to that, andrea, the miscarriage of justice, as i've called it repeatedly, really occurred in

the eastern district of virginia. not today in the courtroom. she did her best to be fair and factu factual. as she said, the defendant saying i'm sorry i got caught is not inspiring a plea for leniency is one example of how she took apart the disingenuous and deceptive attitude he took toward the entire system of justice, feeling he was above the rule of law. but she could have been tougher. she tried to be balanced and fair. i think that overall the public will rightly feel that paul manafort thumbed his nose at justice in this country, and he caught a break. >> of course the president has been expressing sympathy for paul manafort. the white house tells us he has not taken a pardon off the table. what would be your reaction, what should congress's reaction

be if the president pardons paul manafort. >> pardoning paul manafort would be an obstruction of justice. pardoning paul manafort would be plainly an indication of approval of his lying to prosecutors and his continued deception to them and to the american people. there can be no explanation for a pardon other than the president rewarding paul manafort for his defying a legitimate and important effort to get at the truth and to impose justice on russian collusion by the trump campaign and obstruction of justice potentially involving the president himself. right now there is a credible case of obstruction of justice against the president of the united states. whether he will be charged while he's in the white house remains to be seen. obviously the justice department has informal policies against

it. but at the end of the day, the investigations will go on, here and in the southern district of new york and among state authorities. i think that pardoning paul manafort would, in effect, send a message you can break the law, defy the justice system and then be rewarded by the president of the united states. >> as you define it, wouldn't that be an impeachable offense? >> there are a lot of remedies that could be applied to any illegal pardon. remember, the president's pardon power is very broad. he can't misuse any power for corrupt purposes. as a former prosecutor, both federal and state attorney general, i was united states attorney, i'd like to wait until i know all of the evidence before deciding on what is the best remedy to prosecute and punish law breaking. >> hypothetically, though, would

you agree -- it sounds as though you're agreeing with nancy pelosi to wait until you see the mueller report, wait until you see everything that's out there, would you agree with proceeding if you think that there is obstruction? proceeding with impeachment even knowing the senate would never go along and convict. >> we have to assess, andrea, what the evidence and facts are. that's no dodge. it is really a very important principle of prosecuting that you wait to know what the evidence is before you make a decision. corrupt intent, the circumstances of committing certain acts, really contribute to the judgment of whether there should be a prosecution and what the charges should be and where it should be brought. so whether it is in the house of representatives, with any of the proceedings they have, or in courts of law, state or federal, in new york or here in d.c., i

really want to know what that evidence is. here is the bottom line for me. that report from robert mueller must be made public. the american people deserve to see it. my legislation with senator grassley has been joined by another republican, john kennedy of louisiana, patrick leahy, democrat of vermont, i'm hoping that the feeling of agrievement, legitimately so, with paul manafort, will increase the momentum to make that report public to the legislation we offered requiring transparency. the american people paid for this investigation, they deserve to know what it found. >> just finally, do you think that any of the state attorneys general should proceed and try to make cases against paul manafort, or is this the end of the prosecution of paul manafort? >> great question. yes, the state attorneys general

or other authorities, local or state, should proceed with cases against paul manafort to the extent that the double jeopardy clause permits it. if he broke state laws or other federal laws, and they have not been prosecuted by the special counsel, they have an obligation to vindicate the rule of law. >> senator richard blumenthal of connect, thank you very much. we continue with this sentencing decision by judge jackson. franklin fuller, this the first really big case so far. we're still awaiting the flynn sentencing, which has now been postponed again at his request and the prosecution last night agreeing with it. so this is the first big moment with someone that close to the white house. >> and i think it needs to be chalked up as a win for robert mueller. i also think that even though this represents some finality

for paul manafort himself for the way justice will deal with him, i don't think it's the end of the paul manafort narrative. along the way, the mueller team raised all these questions about his relationship to constant seen kilimnick. they said there's a meeting in new york, havana club, cigar room, that was ted -- at the essence of what they were investigating. >> the trump tower meeting. >> the polling data meeting. >> i'm saying and also the trump tower meeting was not part of this case. >> exactly. all that we know is hovering over, lingering over paul manafort, over this investigation. we didn't really learn anything new about that and where the government was going. it should be said amy berman jackson probably knows more about the mueller investigation than anyone outside the mueller team now. she's seen all this redacted material. she's seen all this sealed material that establishes who

constantine kilimnick was, that established what happened, that the government nose what happened at the meeting at the havana room or trump tower and those question marks remain. >> we haven't even delved into rick gates, his former deputy, who has been cooperating and not yet sentenced. now we have a whole new area to look into, which has been reported on recently, which is erik prince, the seychelles meeting, the meeting he happened to fly to the seychelles and happened to also meet with a key russian operative, representative or oligarch who is also -- just for a beer, he said. he misstating according to adam schiff his testimony to the house intelligence committee saying the transcript was wrong. matt miller, we've got a whole lot of collusion to look into. >> that was an innovative excuse that the transcript was wrong. i think that point, the fact there are other potential defendants out there, erik prince is one.

there are employees of the trump organization have liabilities in the separate investigation, why this question of pardon for paul manafort is so important. if the president were to issue a pardon for manafort, it will, number one, be a reward for lies to investigators, before he pled guilty and more importantly his lies to investigators about that meeting where he shared polling data with kilimnick after he cooperated, still lied about it. it would be a reward for those lies. number two, it would be a signal to everyone else in the president's orbit, if you just happening on long enough, you may have to go through trial, it may be unpleasant, may be hard on your family. but at the end of the day if you don't cooperate with investigators and don't tell the truth and protect the most important secrets, i will be here for you with a pardon at the end. i think it's why this question of a pardon is so important. i think harry is right, in most normal situations you wouldn't expect a president in this situation to issue a pardon now. pardons typically come in the second term after presidents

have been re-elected. you would expect it to come after his election, whether he's re-elected or not. he has all the people in the orbit, it may end that rational for donald trump. >> sheriff arpaio. the judge was establishing a political argument. facts matter, this is not an issue. this is not a verdict on robert mueller yay or nay. she was really rebutting a lot of the white house and defense arguments today. >> andrea, she made a number of points that reached well beyond the manafort prosecution. as we mentioned, she said that to claim no collusion is a non

sequitur and not factual. the special counsel's investigation has not concluded. she said paul manafort's illegal lobbying, his violations in effect the public discourse and really do today disservice to our system and to the american people. so she really did seem it want to set the larger record straight so that others can't state or perhaps tweet that she said anything about the result in this case having a broader impact on the question of whether there was trump campaign russia collusion. it will be interesting to see what claims are made, nonetheless, even though she made such strong and pointed comments about those matters. >> and ken, your thoughts, as we see manafort's wife leaving -- we see pictures of manafort's wife and probably other friends and family members leaving right now. >> that's right. as a reminder, paul manafort will be taken back to the

alexandria jail where he's been incarcerated awaiting assignment by the bureau of prisons. to your point about what the judge said, she said in this courtroom facts matter. that appeared to be thinking to this larger issue of the climate we're living in now where the president, and the people around him, are making false statements on a regular basis. where a third of the country doesn't seem to believe anything that comes out of the mueller investigation or the fbi. much as judge ellis used his courtroom to go on a diatribe about what he thought was the inappropriate nature of the special counsel, judge amy berman jackson tried to use her courtroom and the platform she had to send the larger message about the importance of truth and facts in a court of law. >> ken, while you're there and we await hearing from the defense lawyer from paul manafort and his reaction and anything the prosecutors say, they have not been wanting to say anything, let's talk about

the rest of the week. what else is on the docket, if you will. we have the roger stone response, roger stone appearance before judge jackson regarding her demanding answers to that introduction to his newly published book and why that did not violateler partial gag order, correct? >> that's right, andrea. we may all be back here together tomorrow because roger stone is in hot water over this introduction to a book that appeared online. the judge has already concluded roger stone and his team were not straight with her about this. she has said in a ruling that any consequences that flow electric that are on the defendant. she has set the stage for a possible contempt order that could land roger stone in jail. it's not certain. it's one of the possibilities that could happen tomorrow. we'll be watching it closely. >> judge jackson has been patient with roger stone by my

interpretation and others as well in that there have been sequential violations of that gag order, chug one that was egregious, which was a tweet that seemed to be targeting her personally and raising security issues for a federal judge. we don't know what she will decide. she seems to be judicious judging from her comment and sentence, we don't know how she'll approach roger stone and his explanations tomorrow. >> not just that but brazen and dishonest, hiding facts when they come out, of course, it's going to look like a complete violation of the order. >> i had said with manafort, also with jackson, he better bring his toothbrush. my best guess, stone gets one more free pass. the difference is she's going to be especially concerned about first amendment issues on the other side that warn. it's a close call.

she could put him in. my best guess she gives him one more -- even though she said it was his last chance, one more tongue lashing, and a few more days of liberty until he messes up again. >> joining us now former senior adviser to president obama, who worked on campaigns and in the white house as well. this is such a rebuke to the way the president and the house handled pardons, former campaign chairman, minimizing the impact. you've been to how many conventions, political conventions, paul manafort was basically running the show at the convention. >> absolutely. >> importantly seeing a major platform in the republican party affecting his clients, the ukrainians. >> it's interesting, the judge's comments today, and you've already been discussing it, how his stating there is no collusion, how she dismissed

that. how it was a non sequitur and basically sending signals to manafort's, you know, audience of one, president trump it will be interesting to see what the white house said. i'm sure they will say, one, he was campaign manager for a short time. he was campaign manager, a key position in electing the president of the united states. number two, there was no collusion. as the judge said today, that has nothing to do with the charges today and there is no finding by this court on whether there was or was not collusion. >> and what do you think the political impact is? certainly the president and his responses, what he tweets about mueller and the rest of the case seem to be resonating certainly with his base. >> resonating with his base. as the president said, he could stand on 5th avenue and shoot

somebody and it would resonate with his base. it doesn't resonate with the rest of the american people who don't believe this president tells the truth and don't prove of the job he's doing. i think any time these things are in the news, where the president of the united states's campaign manager is going to jail for 7 1/2 years, it is not a good day for this white house. >> stephanie cutter, thank you. everybody stand by. we're still waiting for the defense lawyer for paul manafort to see if he says anything when he comes out of the white house. we'll be back and of course break back in. coming up, varsity blues, "full house" actress lori loughlin expected in court after being charged in that bribery squanl. clean, i don't just clean, i deep clean carpets and floors, so i got this. yep, this too, and this, please. even long hair and pet hair are no problem, but the one thing i won't have to clean is this

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and federal prosecutors are calling this the biggest case of college admissions fraud they have ever handled. 50 people now have been arrested including wealthy parents charged with scheming to get their children into college and the college coaches who allegedly help them in return for bribes. among those charged full house actress lori loughlin taken into federal custody today and will appear in court later today out in california and desperate

housewives star fleft huffman who was in court and posted $50,000 bond. joining me steve patterson outside the courthouse in l.a. let's talk about lori loughlin. she was taken into custody, out of the country when this went down yesterday. what more do we know about her involvement. >> we're told lori loughlin was scheduled in just a few hours. she was in canada at the time the charges were read off and quickly made arrangements to turn herself in. we're told she and her fashion designer husband are accused of paying more than $500,000 to have both their daughters designated as students athletes, as recruits on the usc crew team, even though there's no evidence of them showing any aptitude or willingness or history of rowing crew in this case. so we're told the playbook as

we've seen so far, this is the first court appearance. the judge will read the charges and that she's likely to post bond. her fashion designer husband set a bond of a million dollars yesterday. as you mentioned felicity huffman setting and meeting a bond of $250,000 yesterday. we're told obviously these are just two cases, in a case of 50 families being charged in this conspiracy. obviously people are reacting very harshly to what they are hearing about all of this. back to you. >> they might be. thank you steve patterson. i know you'll be following this all day. more breaking news, we were just talking about this potentially with senator blumenthal. paul manafort has, indeed, been indicted by the manhattan district attorney's office. according to court documents by nbc news by d.a. vance's office. joining me now is nbc's tom winter.

tom, what does this case involve? >> andrea, this case involves and unsealed, a manhattan grand jury 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy around that. we're still going through the indictment and piecing through it if you will. the district attorney here in new york has purview over manafort's properties in new york and some of his real estate transactions, this investigation -- >> and tom. >> yes. >> tom, let me just interrupt you for just a moment, the manafort defense lawyer has just come to the microphone. let's listen in. >> conceded there was absolutely no evidence of russian collusion in this case. two courts have ruled no evidence of any collusion with the russians. >> liar. that's not what she said. that's not what she said. >> number two, very sad -- very sad day for such a callous, hard

sentence that is totally unnecessary, much like this. >> you're not lawyers, you're liars! >> you're lying. that's not what she said. >> as you can see, mayhem outside the courthouse. protesters, one sign reflecting vladimir putin. you saw shouts of liar, liar. harry litman is here. we just were talking to senator blumenthal about whether local prosecutors could come in behind the feds. with a pardon being dangled suggesting from these comments, here kevin downing came out and was again misstating what the judge said, as far as i can tell, by saying there was a decision there was no collusion. she was saying it was a non sequitur, it had nothing to do with that case. she actually gave his client a tongue lashing in that court. in any case the manhattan d.a. vance has come up with some

local charges that are not subject to any kind of presidential pardon. >> that's exactly right. this is huge. downing comes out because he thinks it's all over now. we've run the gauntlet with judge jackson, the system is done with us, i can come back with my no collusion mantra. what it shows, there's a broader system here. this is a big portent, not just for manafort but stone and everyone else. we've been talking and focused on the base for trump but you have a really revved up constituency in other places that want to see justice done. this is going to be calamitous for manafort. it seems likely he will never be able to get out of jail during his lifetime. but just in general, the pushback from the system as a whole, state and federal, to this no collusion mantra and the general lies, there's a whole other player in town. it's the states and the d.a.s

and they will have something to say when the manaforts of this world say, no collusion, it's all over. >> glen, still outside the courthouse, we saw a bit of what happened when kevin downing came and tried to make an argument for his client but there are other jurisdictions here. unfortunately for donald trump or manafort or some of these others, potentially, some of the people in the trump organization, the manhattan d.a. is not someone subject to white house control. >> sure. if paul manafort ends up being convicted in connection with new york charges or charges in other jurisdictions other than federal jurisdictions, a pardon will do paul manafort no good. so you have to wonder what would prompt somebody to continue to say a judge or courts, whether a

virginia court or a d.c. court has said anything about their being no collusion. we all just sat in the courtroom and heard judge jackson's pointed comments about the fact this case says nothing about collusion and that the special counsel's investigation is ongoing. so we'll have to see what other statements are given to the media by the defense. >> tom winter, anything else that you are deriving from this grand jury indictment now that you have it all in full, just getting it as we're hearing it from you? >> sure, of course. what we know is this. first off, eight counts of falsifying business records, four counts of residential real estate fraud and one count of scheme to defraud from the first degree. that's tied to business records. essentially what you have here, andrea, is over a two-year period, 2015 and 2016, the manhattan d.a.'s office picking up on a lot of things presented

at paul manafort's trial and part of public exhibits that were found and developed as a result of search warrants, investigative efforts by special counsel's office and their own investigative efforts at the manhattan district attorney's office. in addition to that, these surround properties and business transactions that we reported prior to any manafort indictment involving several of his properties in new york state, in the city of new york. in addition to that, andrea, things such as his statements regarding season tickets to the new york yankees and statements provided to american express, some of those statements and circumstances we heard about at trial, where he said he had some financial difficulties trying to pay down his new york yankee season tickets in 2016 that documents and things associated around that are part of the charges here today. we're not going to hear from the manhattan district attorney. they are not going to hold a press conference today. that's according to their communications director, andrea,

but the indictment pretty much speaks for itself and covers a significant amount of events we have discussed on air. the significance, of course, is what you've been discussing over the last five or ten minutes, which is that this impervious to any sort of pardon power that the president could, could take advantage of with respect to paul manafort. so paul manafort's legal troubles, chapter is being closed today on the federal end of things, but on the state end of things, chapters are being opened. obviously it's far too soon from manafort's side what they think of the charges. i would add, andrea, many of the events and the instances and some of the fraud that is described in this indictment that was just unsealed are all things that paul manafort has either pleaded guilty to or has admitted his guilt to. so as far as whether or not -- whether or not there is going to be any sort of legal fight here, it's going to be difficult for him. a lot of those statements glenn and harry, i think, can attest to this, his statements and admissions of guilt as it relates to these charges can

come in in the state trial. those are statements that paul manafort has made. i believe that that's how it's going to -- how it's going to go. so this is a really solid case, it appears, for the manhattan district attorney sy vance. >> and katy tur joins us as well. you know paul manafort well and all of these players covering the whole campaign. this is such a significant day in the saga of donald trump and his campaign team. >> yeah, no doubt about that. you know, in talking about the pardon, i had director brennan on "meet the press" daily on monday and director brennan, former director of the c.i.a. said he was absolutely sure president trump would give paul manafort a pardon. he said behavior laz shohas sho to be the case. that's what he believes. noting what manafort's lawyer did outside, saying there was no collusion even after amy berman jackson said collusion had nothing to do with this case, specifically said it, and the special counsel was still looking into collusion, that that question hadn't been

answered, i think it becomes pretty clear that the game plan for paul manafort right now is that they are appealing for a presidential pardon, that there is an audience of one that they are speaking to, and that is donald trump, please potentially pardon paul manafort. that seems to be what their strategy is going forward. obviously we're going to see how donald trump acts with this, but the other day sarah huckabee sanders refused to rule it out. they had a contentious relationship, during the campaign. they did not see eye to eye. donald trump would throw manafort under the bus when he said things trump didn't agree with or he was trying to pull him in, wrangle him back in. but again, the man was there for a very significant portion of the campaign, a part of the campaign where donald trump needed desperately, andrea, to hang onto the delegates at the convention.

he played a really significant role at a really significant time. the administration and donald trump has tried to downplay that, saying that he wasn't there for very long, and he wasn't a major player, but he really was. and the president could be thinking that if this whole thing is a witch-hunt, as he has said, pardoning paul manafort would exonerate him in some way. no collusion for paul manafort means no collusion for him. >> and harry litman has been going through, katy, the grand jury in this manhattan district attorney's case from the indictment itself, as you have now read it, unsealed indictment. >> yes, so really interesting point that occurs to me. this is exactly the kind of crime that cohen made clear in chapter and verse that the trump organization and trump himself did again and again in new york. this is a bad news day for everyone involved in the trump

organization what he's done here. >> how does it relate to the trump organization? >> it's the same kind of crime. you inflate your assets in order -- when it's useful there. so he filed a false document in order to get a mortgage. cohen said they did that and then they decreased it when they wanted to pay lower taxes. so it's the same kind of crime. that's .1 i wanted to make. .2, there will be legal challenges, but on the double japan at this point, it feels a little funny. the basic holding is new york is a separate sovereign. it could well be france. under the constitution it's permitted. new york law itself has some limitations on when you can overlap with a previous federal charge, but i think the double jeopardy defense will fail here. and as i think maybe tom pointed out, otherwise the evidence is already admitted to. >> and he's not in this case being charged with a conspiracy to not file foreign agent

representation. >> no, i'm sorry, it's all about the mortgage. he got a mortgage in new york and he committed fraud in his loan application, statements he made to the bank, et cetera. it is an apartment down on howard street. >> matt miller, we are now seeing the fallout from the federal cases are wrapped up against manafort, now the state and local cases come in behind. >> yeah, that's right. and look, we saw the prosecutors, federal prosecutors say manafort basically launched a ten-year crime spree, a number of crimes, tax evasion, bank fraud, go down the list. what you see here are there are state consequence. he wasn't charged with all the crimes because of new york double jeopardy law. they couldn't charge him with tax evasion crimes. he evaded taxes. if he evaded federal taxes, he probably evaded state tax. there are other places he may

face jeopardy. i would say, though, this is a problem that paul manafort has. it may not be a problem for everyone in the trump orbit that faces legal jeopardy. there are some of them that face obvious federal criminal liability only. roger stone, for example, if roger stone were to get a pardon, there is no evidence yet anything he did would bring him state liability. manafort maybe, if not unique, at least somewhat dissimilar from the other people in the trump orbit. >> it does show that states are looking hard exactly to try to have some antidote, some stone wall against this pardon notion. people are generally offended manafort could walk. i think stone could have potential state liability. >> you don't know whether the -- florida is different from new york politically. >> of course. >> florida prosecutions are much less likely than what we're seeing now from sy vance in manhattan and what you might see from the state attorney general already investigating some of these cases. matt miller, in general, we look

at paul manafort today. we have yet to see the real guts of what paul -- of what robert mueller was originally assigned to investigate, which is what happened with konstantin kilimnik? what happened with wikileaks? we see pieces of this on the edges of these prosecutions, but i think until we see roger stone's trial, presumptively, and what's in the mueller report and any other indictments that may come down before the mueller report, this is an unfinished chapter. >> it's an unfinished chapter. and the question is whether we, the public, will ever be able to finish it. i think mueller certainly has the answers to those questions. he knows what happened in that meeting that paul manafort had with constantikonstantin kilimn. he has rick gates in cooperation telling him. the big question is whether we find out if there are no indictments brought. if there are no indictments brought, another conspiracy indictment around collusion, the collusion question that's brought before mueller wraps up,

i think we'll get some of those answers. if, however, it's the subject of a report that goes to the attorney general that may or may not ever be made public, who knows. i think it's stem cell a serious outstanding question whether we will get answers. the best hope we have is whether the congress of the united states demands those answers from the justice department if they try to sweep them under the rug. that's how we get to know them. it may still be a long time down the road. >> we certainly heard that from adam chiffon morning joe and from the other chairs as well on the house side. they have to worry about overreach, they have to worry about the political fallout. pete williams, in has been a momentous day. you're back from the federal court house. you're here near me in the newsroom. we have to talk about what this really means for paul manafort now that sy vance, the manhattan d.a., has also returned a sealed, previously sealed indictment from a federal -- excuse me, from the state grand jury. >> right. so the reason for this is very simple. i assume protection against the

possibility that paul manafort might be pardoned. otherwise there would be no reason to do it. he's going to serve time for these charges unless he's pardoned. if he were to be pardoned by the president, a president can only pardon someone for a federal offense. so if the state files charges, president could not affect that sentence. so that, i assume, is the reason for this. shouldn't come as any surprise because many state prosecutors in new york, there's been some discussion here in virginia where the bank fraud charges were, about whether there would be separate state charges. but this idea seems to have gained most traction in new york. so i assume that's the reason. nothing is going to happen on these charges because he's not going to be available to appear in court on them. he'll be -- he's going to be otherwise engaged when he's sentenced to federal prison, andrea. >> pete williams, thank you so much for everything. to glenn kirchner and ken dilanian and franklin, stephanie

cutter, and matt miller, of course harry litman, thank you all. we've had a lot of breaking news today, and there's a lot more to come. here is ali velshi and stephanie ruhle for "velshi & ruhle." >> we're going to pickup where you left off, andrea. i'm ali velshi. >> and i'm stephanie ruhle. we start with the breaking news of the hour. it is not over for paul manafort. the 69-year-old former trump campaign manager was indicted by the manhattan district attorney, but 30 minutes after his new sentencing in washington, d.c. there manafort was sentenced by two federal judges to a combined 90 months or 7 1/2 years behind bars. he is set to be there just over 6 1/2 years. >> but there is new indictment for mortgage fraud and conspiracy brings the long-time lobbyist's trouble to a local level. a new level where a potential presidential pardon, which is something we've been talking about for a long time about